UK Vinyl Buyers Different From Those In The US

Although vinyl's new popularity boom spans overseas to the UK, the demographic of vinyl consumers there is significantly different, with UK listeners averaging much older than those in the US, although there listening habits are fairly similar.

Although vinyl doesn’t contribute all that much to the bottom line of the music business, it’s still a hot trend and growing at a pretty good rate. That said, a new study in the UK has found that vinyl buyers there are distinctly different from those in the US.

The study by YouGov found that most buyers in the UK are men between the ages of 45 to 54, while in the US, most buyers were under 34. In fact, in the UK Millennial buyers weren’t able to afford vinyl even if they wanted to, while in the US, many of the same age bought the vinyl even if they didn’t own a turntable.

That said, there are buyers like that in the UK as well, as 50% who purchased an album had yet to listen to it a month later, while 41% own a turntable yet never use it, and 7% don’t own turntable.

It turns out that many vinyl buyers are reconstructing their music collections, having sold off their CDs in favor of downloads in 1998 or 99. Obviously, that format isn’t nearly as satisfying as many thought it would be at the time, so the the move to vinyl shouldn’t come as a surprise, if you can afford it.

Most vinyl buyers are avid concert goers and make it a point to support their favorite acts, according to the study. Most also condemn music piracy, although that’s less of an issue these days than in the past.

Perhaps the most depressing part of the study found that most UK vinyl record buyers are lonely, and I guess staying at home listening to your record collection attributes to that. After all, it’s not the most social of daily events, which could be why the album is in dire straights these days as more and more people gravitate to single song consumption.